The present invention is directed to apparatus for mounting on spectacles for personal display of optical information using the concave spherical surface of a relay mirror as a primary reflector.
In the prior art for glasses mounted displays the goal has been to provide the equivalent display for a personal computer leading to heavy and bulky optics. In the prior art Bettinger in U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,011 discloses a compact spectacle-mounted ocular display apparatus that requires two mirrored optical elements, a primary and a relay mirror. The mirroring of the primary mirror is a difficult step for prescription glasses where the prescription and the display magnification on a lens surface must both be accommodated.
The general object of this invention is to provide a simple visual monitor for information sources limited to several lines of several digits, numerals, lights, signals and letters such as time, temperature, heart rate, speed, equipment status, alarms, phone numbers, abbreviated cellular phone messages and the like. Such displays are limited to resolutions of one quarter VGA (180 by 120 pixels) or less.
Another object of this invention is to provide a small display oriented and positioned in such a way as to not occult or hinder the viewers forward vision because the image is presented as an overlay of an already occulted area of view such as that presented by the nose or because the image is presented in an area that outside and below the normal forward viewing area.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide equipment and vehicle monitoring information in the lower quadrant of view already favored by many viewers because of their long experience in observing automotive instrument panels in this viewing area. Another object of this invention is to provide the shortest possible optical distance between the eye and the object so that focusing movements will be small. It will be understood by one skilled in the art that various movable mounting means for both the display screen and the relay mirror can be accommodated within the present invention.